The Race: Weather in the start city of Brugge at 1PM, after the race had been going for a little more than an hour: 9 Celsius (48F), cloudy, wind from the ENE at 11 km/hr (7 mph), no rain was forecast. It was just about the same at the finish city, Oudenaarde.

The start was fast and about 20 kilometers into the race a break of six formed, to be quickly strengthened with the addition of Lars Ytting Bak and Marco Frapporti. After about sixty kilometers of racing the break was six minutes up the road. The peloton, led mostly by Sky, seemed unworried about the escaping riders.

The break riders (down to Lars Ytting Bak, Dylan Groenewegen, Ralf Matzka, Matthew Brammeier, Jesse Sergent and Damien Gaudin) had staying power and with 120 kms remaining, they still had more than four minutes in hand.

A Shimano service car wanting to get in front of the break clipped Jesse Sergent, sending him to the ground and out of the race. With 100 kms to go, the break still had a four-minute lead.

With about 65 kilometers to go the attacks started coming from the peloton and several groups formed between the pack and the original break, which was little more than two minutes ahead of the peloton.

And with 50 kilometers remaining, the breaks were all absorbed, but immediately more attacks were fired off. With 20 kilometers to go, Alexander Kristoff and Niki Terpstra managed to gain a small gap with several riders chasing

As the riders descended the final climb, the Paterberg, Kristoff and Terpstra still had twenty seconds with Peter Sagan and Greg van Avermaet working together to catch the leading duo. But, with eight kilometers still to race, they were still 16 seconds behind the leading pair.

Kristoff and Terpstra were able to maintain their slim lead to the end. In the sprint for the coveted race win Alexander Kristoff was the faster and stronger of the two, winning the 99th edition of the Ronde van Vlaanderen